


one look

by muy_magical_moose



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:35:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27278089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muy_magical_moose/pseuds/muy_magical_moose
Summary: Your eyes have not yet met, but you feel him searching for them constantly.(pls go easy on me this is my first time trying to write something like this)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Reader, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	one look

It happens now almost every time you walk into the room. You feel his eyes on you, blue and bright like the ocean on a sunny day. His gaze on you is almost palpable, and it hardly ever leaves. Only when you turn to look at him does his look break its focus. 

You make him nervous. Your beauty, so rare and unique, so different from the women from the 40s, is one of the most entrancing things he has ever seen. He watches you innocently, curiously watching your facial expression when you smile or that blank look you get when you’re eating your cereal in the morning. 

He wants to know you, to look at you when you’re looking at him, but he can never bring himself to do it. When your eyes look at him, he feels a burning guilt. Something so beautiful shouldn’t be observing him, caring about him. So he leaves, and wallows in a self pity of his own creation, because of the situations of his past that he could not control.

You on the other hand, had a past you could control. You left home as fast as legally allowed, always yearning to be on your own. Eventually you and your gifts had landed you back with a family again, but this time a chosen one. The Avengers took you in and treated you better than anyone ever had, but the one that you could never connect with was Bucky.

You felt him looking at you, and to your own surprise, it didn’t make you feel uneasy. His gaze never felt sexual or predatory to you. If anything, it made you more curious. You tried to observe him, but your eyes never met. He would try to camouflage himself, like the ghost he was used to being.

You wondered if you should approach him, confront him so that he had to acknowledge you, but something about that felt wrong, forced, and fake. You knew the basics of his past and understood the feeling of trauma. You decided that he would look into your eyes by his own decision, if at all. 

One mission led to another, which led to another, but on the one after this, nothing went to plan. Steve was fighting a practical army when there should have been only a few soldiers, Nat was trying to calm Bruce down before he destroyed another city block, Sam was essentially falling out of the sky, and Bucky was up on the roof of a building sniping an absurd amount of enemies. 

And you? You were lying on the ground with a large hole in your side. You had performed the best you possibly could have, but there were too many. With everyone else on the team being occupied and coms flashing in and out of operation, no one heard what happened. With almost all of your energy spent, you dragged yourself out of sight and waited for someone on your team to find you. You felt your vision turning to black, and took a rest to heal yourself. 

He had been keeping an eye on you from the top of the building, but now that he could no longer see you anymore, he was shaking from nerves and rage. You hadn’t made a sound for at least 10 minutes, and he had a horrible feeling building up in his gut. One, two more shots, and he had enough. He jumped off the roof, using his metal arm to slow his fall, and landed gracefully. 

The silence from the lack of shooting shook you from your rest, but you still could not move. You heard a heavy body hit the ground and kick the rubble around frantically. Eventually, you heard your name. Over and over again, desperately. You groan quietly, but it’s enough. He hears you. Sprinting without a care to where you are, he throws his gun to the side and reaches for you, but he stops. He realizes that your eyes aren’t open. This sense of dread he gets from seeing your eyelids closed is unlike anything he has ever felt. He rips off a piece of his armor and presses it to the wound in your side, but you don’t react in the slightest.

Despite feeling his hands shaking, he reaches up to put his hand on your face, lightly removing the dust. At this moment he thinks that you are already gone, your body curled up, unmoving, and alone. The pain and regret that he feels is so intense, that he goes completely numb. He should have at least told you, something, anything. He wanted to know what color your eyes were. Keeping his hand on your face, he suddenly feels the weakest breath of air on his hand. He freezes, and then catapults into action. He shakes you vigorously and calls out to you, only stopping when your eyelashes start to flutter. Seeing this movement, his instinct takes him, and he looks away. 

You awaken with one of his warm hands on your face and the other pressing to your wound, a stark contrast of pain and affection. You look up at him, not surprised that he isn’t looking you in the eyes. You carefully reach up and put your hand on his, helping him cradle your face. Feeling this, he slowly and painfully drags his gaze upwards until he looks directly into your eyes.

He gasps softly when you smile at him as he does this, overwhelmed by the knowledge that you are alive, holding his hand, and showing off a smile that is only for him. Looking into your eyes, he finds that they’re exactly the color he thought they would be. They’re soft and kind, and so beautiful that he has to smile back. 

As he finally looks at you, really looks at you, you feel a sense of peace that you had yet to discover. His eyes, so blue, so vibrant, so sad. Despite this, you could see that happy man that he used to be, way deep down in there. You couldn’t stop yourself from smiling, feeling that you were finally meeting him after all this time. You leaned closer to him, and without saying a word, he gently pulled your body towards his so that he could support your weight, clot your wound, and hold you closer. 

It was in that position that the others found you both, with your head tucked under his chin, his hair tickling your face, your arms hugging his body, and his arms keeping you alive. 

At the end of all of this, you both are still suffering the trauma of your lives before each other, but this moment was the first in a long series of happy memories created together. All it took was one look.


End file.
